So, the top picture is the pool we walked into on our first night here. Sure, I was pretty tired from a long day traveling, but I was pretttty sure that the pool in on the house rental website was a shade of blue. The kids being kids, they didn't care and jumped into "The Deep" at 9:30 p.m. and swam around anyway.

During the next few days, the pool was drained a little, chemicalized, scrubbed and cussed at. Solution? Drain the entire thing and refill it. Great idea, right? Sure. "Hey, Pancho. When will the pool be done filling up?" "By tonight at 10 p.m.," said Pancho. Pancho failed to take into account that I pee faster than the water comes out of the hose in the courtyard. So, no pool for a couple days until FINALLY at 7:30 a.m., Grady popped out of the bed (we're sharing our bedroom...more on THAT later!) and the first thing he did was run to the door to look out and see if the pool was full. Success! Full pool. Time to swim. Ahhhh....

But wait? Even then there had to be a complaint from the kids! We started swimming and the kids complained that now it's too easy to play Sharks and Minnows because you can actually SEE underwater now. I think I'll call the homeowner and see if she can make it green again!

You might think that our obsession with getting the pool right was a bit...dramatic. But when it's 90 degrees each day with 88% humidity, you want that pool. You NEED that pool! So, we're in good shape again.

So, back to why Grady and Annie are in our room. Did I already mention the leak in their bedroom? I think I did. They had a leak in their room and the homeowner arranged for workers to come replace some roofing. After inspecting it and talking to the roofing guys, Tim, the caretaker, advised us we may want to have the kids sleep with us. Uhhh....OK. We really...uhh...didn't have any ....you know...GOOD reason, I guess, why we'd want...you know, our OWN room! But you do what you gotta do.

We moved their bed into our room and they set up housekeeping in there. It's really not a big deal and I sleep a little better with them in there. Not because I'm a helicopter dad, but because Annie sleepwalks...usually right after she's peed all over the bed, floor, me, etc. To get from the kids' bedroom here to our bedroom, you have to walk by the pool. No sweat. If she's sleepwalking and falls in, I figure the water will wake her up, right? Then she can just pee there. I mean, what was it gonna do? Make the water green??? But remember me saying we drained the pool? NOW if she fell into the pool, it would really be not so good.

NOW the funny part! If you call big snakes "funny." Tim admitted to us yesterday that the reason he suggested we move out is because when they inspected the roof to find the leak, they found a big snake living there! Annie was kinda freaked out. Grady, of course, said "Where's the snake? I wanna see it? Do you have it? When I can see it? What kind is it? Can we take it home? Is it poisonous?"

Ha ha...big funny on all of us, huh? Note to self for vacation next year: There are no snakes in Finland.

So, now we have a full pool, a new roof and everything is good. Right. That would be TOO easy.

Bed bugs. Not THOSE bedbugs that have caused hotels to evacuate, but bugs...in Scott's bed...so by definition, they are bedbugs. Little things the size of a pinhead. We washed and changed sheets. Wait a few minutes and a couple come back. Then some more. We've gotten used to the little ants that scurry all over the place looking for food and the AMAZINGLY fast tiny spider-looking track stars that zip all over. But this is different. After researching "bed bugs" on the Internet, we determined Scott was at risk only for what was referred to as "psychological insect discomfort" as opposed to ACTUAL insect discomfort. Whew!

DID YOU KNOW...that bats can actually be clumsy? I did not know that. Last night, Grady looks into this little concrete "ditch" that surrounds the pool and says, "Holy crap, a bat!" After reminding him not to exaggerate and that I'm not fond of the term "Holy Crap," I looked in the little ditch and promptly slipped up...badly "Holy Shit! A bat!" I exclaimed. "See, dad. I told you. And don't say 'shit,'" said Grady. Duly reprimanded, I got a flashlight to check him out. He was injured and hobbling along. I think he flew into the courtyard and smacked into the wall, fell to the ground and then inadvertently crawled into the little moat around the pool. Fleas? Parasites? Rabies? Androgynous sidekick? What would this bat have?

We traveled lightly for our trip, so I did not have Annie's "Acme Bat Collection Kit" with us, so we used the next best thing to collect him. A Pringle's can. Doubtful? Thought you might be, so there's a picture down below. Bob the Bat slept outside in his little Pringle home last night. I released him down the road this morning and based on his physical condition and apparent allergic reaction to Pringle crumbs, I do not think we will see him again. RIP little Bob. RIP.

Tomorrow we leave for an overnight trip to the island of Ometepe. It's in Lake Nicaragua a couple hours from here via car and ferry. We'll ride horses to a volcano, sleep in the jungle and, I'm quite sure, bitch about the heat and bugs. But, by gosh, we'll be having an adventure!